Biographical Sketch of Mary Meehan

Writer Mary Meehan (whose last name is pronounced "ME-in") was born in Washington, D.C., and spent part of her childhood on a Maryland farm. She graduated from Trinity College, which is now part of Trinity Washington University, with a major in history. She lives in Western Maryland, where she enjoys mountain trails, town festivals, and bluegrass music.

She worked in the 1968 presidential campaign of the late Senator Eugene McCarthy, who challenged the Vietnam War, and in other antiwar campaigns. She also worked for Mr. McCarthy in the 1970s, after his retirement from the Senate. That work included research for two of his books, fund-raising for his independent presidential campaign, and liaison with attorneys in a major constitutional-law case, Buckley v. Valeo. Later she was active against abortion and the death penalty.

A free-lance writer for many years, Meehan has written widely on politics and issues of life and death. She has won two awards for investigative reporting on eugenics and population control.

She is a longtime contributor to Human Life Review, and is now a senior editor of that quarterly. She also has written for America, Bibliophilos, Celebrate Life, Commonweal, Inquiry, Journal of the Alleghenies, Mountain Discoveries, The Progressive, Second Opinion, Social Justice Review, and the Washington Monthly. Her op-ed pieces have been published in newspapers such as the Baltimore Sun, Des Moines Register, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Newsday, and the Washington Post. She has contributed chapters to several books, including the anthology Consistently Opposing Killing (Praeger, 2008).

She has spoken on life issues at institutions including Arizona State University, Bryn Mawr College, Cornell University, Furman University, George Washington University, Georgetown University Law Center, Grinnell College, Harvard University, Loyola University Chicago, McGill University, North Carolina State University, Notre Dame Law School, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of Oklahoma, Valparaiso University School of Law, and Williams College.